Banning Bottled Water

I think it should be done. There are very few things I preach about (at least, I think...) but this is one of them. So far I got a few friends and my boyfriend to stop purchasing dozens of bottles of water per week and instead to use a brita filter and fill up a nalgeen water bottle instead.
(But I just ordered two stainless steel water canteens because after a long while of using and resuing my plastic canteens/nalgenes, the scratches made in the plastic from normal usage can actually lead to leaking bits of poison right into the water it holds. Eek!)

Here are some extracts from various sources about how bottled water 1> is a scam (i.e. not really being cleaner than most tap water samples), 2> reeks havoc on the environments by the oil it requires to produce, but also the oil (gas) it takes to transport it to all sort of sales points.

Bottled water, a natural resource taxing the world's ecosystem
"...the United States was the largest consumer of bottled water, with Americans drinking 26 billion liters in 2004, or about one eight-ounce (25 cl) glass per person every day. Mexico was the second largest consumer at 18 billion liters followed by China and Brazil at 12 billion liters each. In terms of consumption per person, Italians came first at nearly 184 liters, or more than two glasses a day, followed by Mexico and the United Arab Emirates with 169 and 164 liters per person respectively. Belgium and France follow close behind and Spain ranks sixth."

"The study, citing the Container Recycling Institute, said that 86 percent of plastic water bottles in the United States end up as garbage and those buried can take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade."

Pepsi press release states that Aquafina is tap water

Seven Misconceptions about Plastic and Plastic Recycling
"Plastic packaging has economic, health, and environmental costs and benefits. While offering advantages such as flexibility and light weight,it creates problems including: consumption of fossil resources; pollution; high energy use in manufacturing; accumulation of wasted plastic in the environment; and migration of polymers and additives into foods.

Did you know that microwaving food in plastic containers lead to early puberty in kids?

NYTimes: A Battle Between the Bottle and the Faucet
"Or, city officials suggest, you could spend 2,900 times as much, roughly $1,400 yearly, by drinking bottled water."

“More than 90 percent of the environmental impacts from a plastic bottle happen before the consumer opens it,” said Dr. Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Oil for plastic, oil for shipping, oil for refrigeration — and in the end, most of the effort goes to landfills."

Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World's Water

Tapped Out: The True Cost of Bottled Water
"Last year Americans spent nearly $11 billion on over 8 billion gallons of bottled water, and then tossed over 22 billion empty plastic bottles in the trash. In bottle production alone, the more than 70 million bottles of water consumed each day in the U.S. drain 1.5 million barrels of oil over the course of one year.

"Not only does bottled water contribute to excessive waste, but it costs us a thousand times more than water from our faucet at home, and it is, in fact, no safer or cleaner. "The bottled water industry spends millions of dollars a year to convince us that their product is somehow safer or healthier than tap water, when in fact that's just not true," says Victoria Kaplan, senior organizer with Food and Water Watch."

"While single-use water bottles should never be used more than once, some reusable water bottles simply shouldn't be used. The debate continues over the safety of bisphenol A (BPA), a hormone-disrupting chemical known to leach out of the #7 polycarbonate plastic used to make a variety of products, including popular Nalgene Lexan water bottles. New studies keep cropping up that don't bode well for BPA, demonstrating that even extremely low doses of the chemical can be damaging. [Buy stainless steel water canteens!] Recent research has linked the chemical to a variety of disorders,including obesity and breast cancer, and one chilling 2007 study, published in the journal PLoS Genetics, found that BPA exposure can cross generations. Pregnant mice exposed to low levels of BPA led to chromosomal abnormalities, which possibly cause birth defects and miscarriages, in grandchildren."

Eau, no: Clean, healthy and pure? Hardly. Bottled water is killing the planet

Tap Water Regulated by EPA	Bottled Water Regulated by FDA
Cannot have confirmed E. coli or fecal Coliform bacteria.	A certain amount of any bacteria is allowed.
Filtered and/or disinfected	No federal filtration or disinfection requirements.
Violation of drinking water standards are grounds for enforcement.	Bottled water in violation of standards can still be sold.
Utilities must have their water tested by certified labs.	Such testing is not required for bottlers.
Tap water results must be reported to state or federal officials.	There are no reporting requirements for bottlers.
Water system operators must be certified.	Bottled water plant operators do not have to be certified.
Water suppliers must issue consumer confidence reports annually.	There are no public right-to-know requirements for bottlers.
Costs pennies a day	Costs $.80 to $4.00 per gallon.
Contains essential nutrients for the body such as calcium and iron.	Natural minerals are removes by filtration.
Chlorine residual in water to prevent bacteria growth.	No disinfectant present to kill bacteria in bottles.

Ok, now that I sound like a friggin' tree-huggin, organic-eating, bleeding heart liberal, this Penn & Teller episode about the bullshit behind bottled water is really worth a watch, just for a laugh if anything:



Last bit of me being a pseudo-hippie: Think about where the stuff you buy comes from and how far it must travel in order to get to your local supermarket. Buy locally!